Photocatalytic Degradation of Oxytetracycline Using Zeolite Imidazole Framework-8 (ZIF-8) as an Effective Catalyst

Antibiotics are a class of organic pollutant in the medical field for hundreds of years. Due to the continuous discharge of antibiotics in the environment, the phenomenon of pseudo-persistence of antibiotics is produced. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an advanced sustainable technology to remove antibiotics from water resources. In this study, Zeolite Imidazole Framework-8 (ZIF-8) was prepared by a simple and rapid method. Oxytetracycline (OTC) degradation was performed using ZIF-8 as a photocatalyst under visible light (VL) (500 W xenon lamp) irradiation. Under different experimental conditions, ZIF-8 has strong catalytic removal performance for OTC. When the reaction conditions are: OTC concentration of 80 mg L − 1 , ZIF-8 concentration of 1.0 g L − 1 , pH 5.96, the OTC removal rate is more than 90%. Through the detection and analysis of degradation intermediates, the possible degradation pathway of OTC was proposed. This study showed that the OTC removal rate of ZIF-8 could still reach 69% after four times of recycling. The results showed that the ZIF-8/VL system had high OTC removal efficiency and good recyclability.